Dad bought our plain, two-story house from the coal company and immediately began to remodel it. Our house was the first on the hill to have anindoor bathroom and hot water. He spent one summer digging out the clay-filled foundation to install a coal furnace. We children no longer shivered inour bed-rooms on cold winter mornings.
We loved to watch him work. When Dad needed something, we ran to getit. If we called it a "thingamabob he would say, "That's a nail set" (thetool for sinking the head of a nail below the surface of the wood). "It has aname. Use it."Dad carried a spirit of craftsmanship into every job and expeaed the samefrom all six children. Each job had its claim on your best efforts. And evertool had its name. Those were his principles, and we lived by them just as Dad did.
爸爸从煤炭公司买了一所简易两层楼住宅，然后立即进行改造。
我们这所住宅是小山上第一家设有室内浴室和使用热水的，他用了一个夏季的时间挖掘全都是粘土的地基，装起了煤炉，冬天寒冷的早晨，我们孩子们在卧室里再也不冻得发抖了。
我们喜欢看着他干活，爸爸需要什么东西，我们跑着去取，如果我们把那件东西叫作“某东西”，他总说：“那是敲钉子的工具（把钉子楔进木头里的工具）”，“它有个名字，叫它的名字。”
爸爸干什么活儿都讲究技艺，而且希望所有六个孩子也同样做。
每一件活儿都要求你尽努力，并且每件工具都有名称。这些是他的原则，正如爸爸按照这些原则办事一样，我们也按照这些原则办事。
His playful spirit would set us to giggling-like the time he was building fireplace in the back yard. He sent us to look for the "stone-bender" he needeto make the comer stones fit more evenly. "Guess I'll have to bend theiamyself," he said when we returned empty-handed. We saw the sparkle in.bijeyes, and knew we'd been had.
Sitting in the hospital waitting room, I thought back to an afteon in Dad'sworkshop several years ago..He was retired by then, but he kept busy building beautiful furniture, now for his children's homes. A volunteer naturalist,I was eager to tell him about the help bluebirds needed.
他爱开玩笑的态度常使我们咯咯发笑。像那一次，他在后院修建壁炉，派我们去寻找他所需要的所谓石头折弯机，以便把边角石块砌得更平稳。我们空手而回，他说：“看来我只得自己把石头弄弯喽。”我们看到他眼睛里闪耀的神色，于是知道我们受骗了。
我坐在医院候诊室里，回想起几年前在爸爸车间里的一个下午，那时他已经退休，但是还不断地忙着制造漂亮家具，是给他几个孩子家里制作的,作为一个自愿研究动物的人，我迫切地要把蓝知更鸟需要的帮助告诉他.
When the early settlers had cleared forests for farmland, I explained, blueLbirds flourished, nesting in fence-posts and orchard trees. But their habitatwas disappearing, and now the birds needed nesting boxesDad listened as-I spoke, his hands gently moving a finegrained sand-paperover a piece of oak. I asked him if he would like to build a box. He said hewould think about it.
Several weeks later he invited me into his workshop. There, on his workbench,sat three well-crafted bluebird nesting boxes. "Think the birds willlike themT'
he asked.
我解释道，早来的移民砍伐森林开垦农田的时候，蓝知更鸟就成群结认地在篱笆桩和果园树上筑巢，但是它们酣栖息衄越来越少，如今，蓝知更鸟急切需我沈话时爸爸着，向手接住二张细粒沙纸在二块栎来上轻轻地摩擦，我问他是否愿意制作巢箱，他说他愿意考虑。
几个星期后，他邀请我到车间去，在工作台上放着三个制作精巧的蓝知更鸟巢箱。“你认为鸟儿喜欢它们吗？”他问道。
"As much as I do,"I replied, hugging him. Dad put up the boxes, and thenext spring bluebirds nested in his yard. He was hooked.
Dad became quite an expert on the species. Bluebirds, he would say, areharbingers of hope and triumph, renowned for family loyalty. A pair willhave two or three broods a year, the earlier young sometimes helping to feedthe later nestlings.
The presence of his children must have boosted Dad's spirits after his attackbecause he grew stronger and left the hospital on Valentine's Day WhenI visited my parents at the end of March, Dad was confined to the downstairs.
But I noticed that he paused longer and longer at the windows facing theback yard. I knew what he was hoping to see. And one day a bright flash ofcolor circled the nesting box closest to our house.
…“像我一样，非常喜欢。”我紧紧拥抱着他回答说。爸爸支架起巢箱，于是第二年春天蓝知更鸟便在他院里落了户，而他也迷上了蓝知更鸟。
爸爸成了这种鸟的行家里手，他常说蓝知更鸟是希望和成功的预言者，它们家族成员的忠诚出了名，一对蓝知更鸟一年下两三窝蛋，早孵出的幼鸟有时帮助喂后来出壳的雏鸟。
爸爸犯病后他的孩子们都来了，这一定提高了他的情绪，所以他精力刚刚恢复就在情人节那天出院了。我于三月底去看望父母，爸爸被安置在楼下，可是我注意到，他在窗前向后院伫立的时间越来越长了。我知道他盼望看到什么。一天，有个色彩鲜明闪亮的东西，在紧靠我们房屋的巢箱周围盘旋。
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